The Shadow of the Slayer
by Lancer47
Summary: Are Shadows in Sunnydale inhabited by Monsters? Do you even have to ask? WIP.
1. Chapter 1

Buffy, the Vampire Slayer

In a Fan Fiction by

S T Farnham (Lancer47)

**The Shadow of the Slayer**

Disclaimer:  
The usual, Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and others who aren't me, own the original characters and background. I'm trespassing here but not selling the stuff, yadda, yadda, yadda, and death to idiot television executives.

_("Only the ones who are idiots."_

_"But they're ALL idiots!" _

_"Yeah, that's where I was going with that.")_

Author's Notes: This story takes place during Season Four or Five, before Joyce's death. I want to think that this happened during the summer, between seasons, nevertheless complete with the memory of Dawn and after Giles bought the Magic Box.

Rating: Same as the show.

Spoilers: Sadly, there can no longer be any spoilers for anyone who has seen the entire BtVS corpus. And it's unlikely that anyone who has missed any episodes will be reading this stuff.

**--- Prologue ---**

Soul-of-Darkness was draped comfortably across a lightning rod on the roof of the new Sunnydale Community Gymnasium soaking up starlight. She wriggled over the point to scratch at a particularly hard to reach spot while her edges brushed against the gravel roof. She was so content that she fell asleep, and didn't notice an approaching thunderstorm. She was oblivious when the starlight disappeared, and oblivious when it started to rain. But when a stroke of lightning was attracted to her lightning rod on its wild ride to a common ground, well, Soul-of-Darkness didn't stand a chance.

Eater-of-Darkness had slithered over the roof parapet just in time to witness the electrocution of Soul-of-Darkness, and was angered to the depths of his soul, well, if had one. _Those meddling humans_, he thought, _putting up lightning rods at high spots, knowing they would attract his kind, knowing they were dangerous to his kind. Well, we'll just see what we can do about that!_

He drifted down the wall of the brick building.

Eater was very hard to see, mostly because he was quite blurry at the edges, and was a surprisingly insubstantial creature. By and by, Eater approached his brother, the grandly named Lord-of-Darkness, and made his presence known. If there had been an eavesdropper, they would have heard a deep but quiet whispering, unintelligible to all but the intended recipient as Eater-of-Darkness argued vociferously with Lord-of-Darkness. Lord nodded negatively. Eater nodded positively and pointedly. After a bit, Lord sort of shrugged and acquiesced to his sibling. Then the two huddled together over some twigs, stones, and odd markings on the wall, hovering above the shadows created by the twigs and stones.

The whispering became furious, some very unworldly sparks flew from an unnatural fire that burnt with an ugly glow. The whispering quieted down, and finally, after a silence, the fire popped out of existence, and …

_**Wolf's howl,Buffy's Theme, credits roll.**_

**--- Chapter One ---**

"Buffy! Buffy!" yelled Xander as he ran incautiously down the dark alley, "wait up!"

Buffy turned, a frown on her face as she waited, "Xand, what are you doing here? Is something wrong? Is Dawn OK?"

"No, yes, I mean every thing's fine," he puffed as he caught up, "I just wanted to hang for awhile – I wasn't sleepy and figured you could use some company on tonight's patrol."

"I appreciate the company, but you know it might be dangerous, although it is a quiet night – Sunnydale seems to be sleeping peacefully – but it usually does even during those nights when unspeakable evil walks abroad on the moonlit paths."

"Well la di dah, aren't we waxing poetic tonight! And anyway, there's no moon."

"Oh, my brain rambles on when not much is happening – and the moon thing is, you know, metaphorical. My thoughts start running around in circles on these slow nights."

They continued walking companionably down the alley.

"Does that mean you **want** some action? Did you visit Faith in prison this week? Did her vibes rub off on you and now you're getting the urge to kill something? You'll let me know in plenty of time if slaying makes you hungry and horny, right?"

"Not to worry Xand," Buffy replied with a smile, "but it's a dull night, I'm just bored."

"So where's Riley? Haven't seen him around in a couple of days."

"He went home for a week, you know see the family and all that Norman Rockwell stuff."

"Oh, he's back in Ohio?"

"No, no, Iowa."

"What's the diff?"

"Well, just between you and me, not much from here. But don't let Riley hear you say that, and I've got to stick up for him while he's gone. So hush. And now that we've finished that little discussion, I'm still bored."

"Well, maybe not for much longer," said Xander as they came to a wide spot in the alley, "Are those vampires or demons of some kind hanging out by those dumpsters, drinking beer and smoking weed?"

Buffy looked carefully at the alley's inhabitants, sighed deeply and shook her head, "No, I'm sorry to say, those are just the ordinary human kind of bad guy. I'm not allowed to slay them, more's the pity," she brightened a bit as she added, "I can beat them up though."

The two dubious individuals noticed Buffy and Xander watching. They immediately put down their beers, dropped their smokes and sauntered towards the newcomers. One smiled insolently and pulled a gun out of his leather jacket, pointing it at Xander.

"Hey man," said Xander, "would you mind pointing that gun somewhere else? She doesn't care, but I'm a timid guy."

Buffy whispered to Xander, "What are you doing! Don't piss them off until …!"

But it was too late, the man with the gun said, "Oh, a smart guy huh!" and stepped closer to Xander with the intention of pistol-whipping him.

Xander noticed the gun barrel had wavered far enough so that it was no longer pointed at either him or Buffy, and the gunman had gotten close enough, so Xander attacked. Xander figured, why not? After all, he'd attacked monsters and demons for Buffy, how could some common mugger scare him? So he grabbed the gun with his left hand as he leapt. He hit with his right, and got in a good knee jab. The gun went off, twice, Buffy heard one bullet ricochet as it whanged off the concrete block wall.

Meanwhile, the second guy pulled out a knife, grabbed Buffy around her waist with his left arm and waved his knife in front of her. He said with a scornful leer, "Well my pretty little miss, I think with a knife at your throat, your friend will want to quiet down, dontcha think?"

"I doubt it," said Buffy, "but its time to stop this before anyone besides you gets hurt." And Buffy disarmed him in a fraction of a second, pulling her punch enough to render him unconscious without killing him. She looked over to where Xander struggled, just in time to see him stand up with the gun in his hand, his attacker out cold at his feet. He smiled at Buffy, tipped his imaginary hat to her, and said with a slightly drunken look, "Don't worry darling, I've got it all under control."

"XANDER! Explain yourself!"

"Well Buff," Xander replied, "Anya and I had a 'Thin Man' Festival last night, and I think I might be channeling William Powell, or more likely Nick Charles."

"More likely Asta, you jerk, stop it before you get shot!" Buffy said angrily.

"Um, too late I think," he said as looked at blood dripping down his arm, "looks like I got a flesh wound. And hey! Unlike me, Asta was always hiding when danger loomed."

A now concerned Buffy started towards Xander, but her feet suddenly flipped up in the air for no apparent reason. She was startled but kept her balance and tucked her legs in and continued her unplanned flip around and landed on her feet. She spun around to face her attacker and saw – nothing. She was utterly perplexed as she looked around, trying to figure out what had attacked her.

She heard an outraged "Ooof!" from Xander, and looked around in time to see him smash into the wall and slide to the ground, the gun that had been in his hand skittered off towards the unconscious knife wielder. Buffy grabbed up the gun, just to keep track of it, and started towards Xander again.

She wasn't quite as surprised, but a lot more pissed-off when she was shoved violently sideways, lost her balance and splashed full-length into a large puddle of dirty water. She did that back flip thing she does so well and splashed to her feet, looking around a little wildly at nothing at all that could have shoved her. She said uncertainly to the thin air, "Is that you, Marcie?" But she heard nothing but water dripping from her sodden clothes.

She experimentally tried some punches and kicks, but hit nothing, leaving her feeling a little foolish. Then a searchlight beam stabbed down the alley, followed by flashing multicolored police lights and stentorian commands to 'FREEZE!', and 'POLICE!', and 'PUT YOUR HANDS UP!', all of which Buffy obeyed readily, that being the sort of thing that happened to her from time to time. She wondered, a bit late, what happened to the gun that had been in her hand – looking around she spotted it in the puddle. Good, she thought, it can wait there for the cops.

-- --

Detective Stein stared at Buffy dispassionately while she described how she and Xander defeated the two muggers. He had observed Xander's wound, and didn't bother looking for any bruises on Buffy – past experience with her had given him some idea of what not to expect. "Now Ms. Summers, where is the gun again?"

"Right there!" Buffy said pointing towards the puddle, exasperated, "where I told you it was." Buffy looked at the puddle, and couldn't see the gun because of all the conflicting shadows. She frowned and stood up to take a closer look. A uniformed officer started to push her back, but Detective Stein signaled her to back off. Buffy stared at the puddle for a moment and then noticed water spots trailing off towards the shadows. She waved her hand for the detective to follow her and tracked her way behind the dumpsters. "There it is detective," she said, pointing to the gun lying on the ground by the wall, "but I can't begin to understand how it got here. That's assuming it's the same gun. It does look the same."

"Might not matter," said Stein, "there aren't any bullets to dig out of anyone, and the one that went down the alley isn't going to be of much use even if we do find it. Still, you never can tell what other crimes it could be tied to."

"So you know these guys," Buffy stated.

"Yeah, well I know of them anyway. It's likely that we'll find enough to hold them for trial." He looked over at the now bandaged-up Xander and said, "You and Mr. Harris can go now, but I'll probably be by your house for more questions in the next day or so. You're still on Revello Drive, right?"

But Buffy didn't answer – she was staring at something in the deep shadow near the back of the dumpster where it was angled towards the wall. Detective Stein noticed Buffy's non-response and followed her gaze. When he realized what had consumed Buffy's attention he turned and yelled towards the other cops, "Hey, how come none of you eagle-eyed investigators noticed the dead guy back here?"

-- --

Anya heard footsteps approaching from the corridor and opened the door of Xander's apartment. "Finally Xander! It's three in the freakin' morning! What happened to you? You're injured! You're not injured anywhere important are you? Buffy! What did you do to Xander? Never mind, just go away so we can get naked and have sex."

"I didn't do anything! Jeez! What do you think happened? We surprised some low-life's down in the alley and Xand got a little wound during the fight. God! You guys are like bunnies!"

"Buffy! That's nasty thing to say!"

"Sorry Anya, I didn't mean it like that. Good night Xander, Anya."

-- --

The next day at the Magic Shop everyone was sitting at the round table, except Anya, who was helping some customers.

"It was really weird Giles," Buffy said, "I didn't feel anything at all, no hands of indeterminate temperature, no tripwires or ropes or anything, my feet just took off into the air and I had no choice but to follow my feet. Then, when I fell into the puddle, I was shoved, except without anything touching me, I just kind of – hell, I can't explain it. You try Xander."

"I can't add anything, I mean I was watching, trying figure out why Buffy was suddenly doing gymnastics, but it was hard to see what with all the shadows moving around and everything. I have no idea why I suddenly flew into the wall, I was hit violently without anyone hitting me, violently or otherwise. Pretty disquieting if you ask me," said Xander, scratching at his bandage.

"Moving shadows?" asked Willow, "what was causing the shadows?"

"What?"

"Well, for there to be a shadow you have to have a light, and something in front of the light, and a surface for the light that isn't blocked to fall on," Willow lectured pedantically. "You have to have all three, otherwise you get nothing—well not nothing, but no shadows anyway. And for the shadows to be moving, either the light or the shadow casting object, or both, must be moving: there's more to it than that of course, but we don't need to get into umbras, penumbras, quadratic equations ..."

"Thank God for small favors!" Xander interrupted.

"... and the like right now," Willow finished, with a glare Xander-wards.

Xander and Buffy looked at each other, a little startled. "You know," said Buffy, "there were more shadows than there should have been, I'm thinking. But what could that mean? Possessed shadows?"

"Yeah right," laughed Dawn, "Shadow Monsters! What could they do to you?" She looked amused and then looked at her shadow on the floor, and frowned. "Well, my shadow is were it belongs."

"Mine too," everyone except Anya chorused, looking nervously at the floors and walls.

Giles suggested, "Not to be the contrarian, but there must be some rather more mundane explanation. You're grasping at straws, or thin air. In thirty odd years of research into the demonic world, I've never come across such a reference. Things that hide in shadow, yes, but actively demonic shadows? I think not!"

"Oh, Shadow Monsters," Anya blurted, "they're usually harmless."

There was an extended silence while everyone stared at Anya, except Dawn who was frantically trying to watch all the shadows in the store simultaneously.

Giles finally spoke up, "And what, dare I ask, are you talking about Anya?"

"You know, Shadow Monsters, sometimes called Hell Shadows, Devil Shades, hobgoblins – but that's incorrect, Night Beasties, Free Shadows – that sounds kind of cute doesn't it? But the most accurate name, at least in English, is Inspirited Shade of Phantom."

"Inspirited … but of course!" Giles exclaimed excitedly, "I remember a vague reference now. Hold on now, I must get some reference books out of storage, perhaps it's in _The Compleat Compendium of Odd Demons_, by Cardinal – oh, something or other – I'll be right back!" And he tore off to the basement in full research mode.

"Dang," said Xander, looking at Willow, "we should have had a bet down!"

"I would have won," Willow said primly.

"Hey," Dawn shouted, now standing on her stool, "Shadow Monsters! Get cracking! We could be attacked anywhere, anytime!"

"Not quite anywhere, surely not in bright sunlight, and maybe we could defeat them at night with bright flashlights," suggested Willow.

"Well," said Anya, "maybe. The last time I encountered such creatures electric lights hadn't been invented yet. They did have lanterns, but those just make the shadows more flickery and mysterious."

Tara spoke up for the first time, "So, so we won't use lanterns, and Anya, just what do you mean by 'u, usually' not dangerous?"

"You see, most of the time they're just shadows. Even if they become restless about all they can do is detach themselves from the projected shadow and wander about. The real shadow stays behind of course; the Shadow Monster just leaves it's usual haunt. Many shadows are inhabited, by the way, maybe most shadows, but we aren't equipped to notice."

"Oh thank you for that thought," Dawn said, annoyed.

"But," continued Anya, "once in while, when the moon is in the dark phase, and some outside influence makes the Shadow Creature angry, they can perform some kind of ritual that makes it possible for them to interact with reality, that's when they become Shadow Monsters.

"Now these Shadow Monsters really aren't very powerful, but they are very difficult to see, or find. But they can surprise you completely when they do show up. They don't have much in the way of special powers, but they're real sneaky about tripping people at inopportune moments, and things like that.

"I wish I could remember how to defeat them, but it's been some time since I had to deal with them, and I was a powerful demon back then. Still, I can't believe it'd be too hard, they're just shadows after all, perhaps just a bit more substantial than the usual sort of shadow."

Buffy wondered aloud, "Well that doesn't sound so bad. How to we administer calming influences to the Phantoms of the Shadows? Some kind of Dark Prozac maybe?"

"And of course," Anya added nonchalantly, "they can stuff your throat until you suffocate, or pinch off a major artery until your heart stops, or pinch the nerves in your spinal cord, or any number of other little things like that."

"And you didn't think to list those possibilities first?" Xander asked pointedly.

"Well, they don't usually kill people. Just when they get angry."

"But don't they need to be angry to get real?" Dawn asked.

"Uh, I guess, yeah. So maybe they should be considered dangerous. I think to kill them, we need to hit them on their own terms. The solution I heard about centuries ago had to do with getting some kind of Shadow Champion or something."

"Oh great," Dawn said sarcastically, "Inspirited Shadow of Buffy! Just what we need hanging around the house – like we really need the extra gloom!"

"Yetch," said Buffy.

"Oh yeah! That's it!" exclaimed Anya with a happy smile, "The Shadow of the Slayer!"

-- --

Stay tuned for Chapter 2.


	2. Chapter 2

The Shadow of the Slayer

Chapter Two

"So the idea," Giles retorted petulantly, "is to turn Buffy into a shadow? And just how, precisely, is that going to help matters?"

Willow looked up from her thick tome, "According to this we will just sort of split off a piece of Buffy – a itsy bitsy teeny tiny little piece. This little piece of her spirit will go into the shadow, thus, _inspiriting_ it. But there won't be any confusion because during the day Buffy's regular self will be ascendant. Only after nightfall will her shadow-self awaken. Now the cool part is that at night Buffy just goes to sleep, then she will be able to travel the night in shadow spirit. During the day, her Inspirited Shade will simply be with her, wherever she goes, in her shadow. I'm not clear what happens when there is no natural shadow, but apparently, it doesn't matter."

"Well," said Buffy, "it sure sounds good. But somehow these things never seem to work out in practice what seems so cool in theory. I mean, what happens to me if my Shadow Spirit is killed?"

"There are two possibilities: nothing, a slight tingling sensation, or death," Willow said. "er, three possibilities," she added quickly.

"I choose one!"

"Buffy, it's not a matter of choosing, it's a matter of I don't know which will happen, yet. The meaning of this text is awfully obscure, and the definition of words through the ages can be real slippery. Sometimes words reverse their meaning from one century to the next, or even within the same century. And sometimes words mean different things just because they're British instead of real English." Willow noticed that Giles was turning purple. She hurried on before he could launch a rebuttal, "We'll continue our research and we won't risk splitting off a piece of your spirit until we know the which from the what."

"But Willow, I still don't see how this will solve the problem at hand, even assuming Buffy survives unharmed in an _English Speaking_ state!"

"Look Giles," said Anya, "in the shadow state Buffy will still be a warrior. She will be able to fight the other shadow demons."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! Maybe."

Buffy looked unhappy as she said, "I don't know about this guys. Get more information, and really, how dangerous are these shadow thingies anyway? Can we attribute any death and mayhem to the dark shadows? I mean, so far, it's just been practical jokes."

Giles frowned. "But what about the dead body in the alley Buffy?"

"Willow, have you hacked into the coroner's office to get the autopsy report yet?"

"Yeah, but they don't have it ready yet. It seems there was an overflow from that insane eighty-six-car pileup on the Interstate yesterday. Morgues of three counties are backed up with dead and mangled bodies, it may be a few more days before they get around to cutting up a back alley bum."

"You know," Buffy mused thoughtfully, "I just thought of something, something that's less than good. It's that strangely mobile gun – I wonder if that dead guy might have been shot by a shadow."

"You think the Shadow Monster was able to manipulate a gun?" Xander asked, a little incredulous, "I think you might be stretching there Buffy."

"Worse than that, what if the Shadow Monster caused that pile-up?"

Giles spoke up, "Let's not borrow trouble before we know what we're up against. Let's do more research, then we can make a reasoned decision."

"So we don't actually know if these guys are dangerous or not?"

"That's about the size of it Buffy," said Willow, "I guess we sit and wait for more info.

-- --

The next afternoon, Giles, Willow, Buffy, Dawn, and Anya sat on the floor in the basement of Buffy's house. Various arcane symbols had been painted or poured on the floor: a large circle in pure carbon, six obtuse triangles in vermilion paint, a single golden rectangle, a number of impossible to describe magical symbols in blood, and an unbroken line of the purest white sand around the whole. In the center was a small pile of solid black sand with a thread made from ligaments of a sheep leading from the center to Buffy's right hand. From her left hand, a thread made from finely beaten gold led to the golden rectangle. From the rectangle a thin line of red sand wandered in various arcs back towards the black sand pile. Finally, carefully selected and placed twigs, stones, and leaves made a pattern of some kind, a pattern that radiated outward from the center.

"Ommm, mannnni, padme, hummmmmm," intoned Dawn, sitting crosslegged with her hand on her knees, palms up.

Willow glared angrily and said, "Dawn, hush up. Stop fooling around."

Dawn didn't look very chastened, but she hushed up.

"Now," Willow continued," everybody get to your places behind the triangles. Be certain that you are completely with the circles, not even a toe can be outside."

Willow sat still with her hands palms-up on her knees and visibly quieted herself. She centered her energy and started to chant in an unknown language, unknown to the others anyway. Her chant came out as a low, unintelligible whisper. After a few minutes an other-worldly flame appeared above the black sand pile, along with strange looking sparks and a breeze where no breeze should be possible. Willows eye's went black, her hair started swirling around wildly and became violently red.

**CRACK!**

The noise was so loud everybody jumped, at least a little. Willow relaxed, her eyes and hair returned to normal, and she said, "OK, that went well."

The others looked around, a bit puzzled.

"There," Willow said, pointing at an occupied triangle, "Buffy's inspirited shadow."

And sure enough, Buffy's shadow was over where it shouldn't be. Giles quickly checked to see if Buffy still had a regular shadow, and she did. While Giles watched, the detached shadow slowly drifted towards Buffy's regular shadow, and then it merged and was gone. A moment later a different shadow, one with a bizarre shape, detached itself from Buffy's shadow and disappeared into the shadows in the back of the basement. Buffy's eyes widened a little.

"Ahhh," asked Buffy, "so my physical shadow is now occupied by my inspirited phantom shadow? Which apparently displaced a freeloading shadow spirit. How come I don't feel any different?"

Willow shook her head a little, "Why would you feel any different? There is no real change. It'll be fascinating to know whether or not you remember your night-time activities tomorrow morning though."

"Yeah, fascinating," said a morose Buffy, "then why do I feel so much like a laboratory rat?"

"Well Buff, you do have experience at being a rat after all," said Xander helpfully.

"But not a laboratory rat, Xander, just an ordinary run naked around the basement kind of rat." Buffy looked a little put out as she explained this.

Xander grinned at Buffy.

"Xander," Buffy said dangerously, "I am suddenly telepathic and I know what you are thinking, you had better stop thinking that."

Xander wiped his grin off his face as Giles asked Willow, "Can we break the circle now?"

"It's already broken Giles," Willow pointed at wind-swept gaps, "remember the breeze? That's the cool thing about magic, when it goes right it runs on automatic. I think it's time for the next step, are you feeling ready for bed Buffy?"

-- --

_Buffy-the-Slayer-of-Darkness_ suddenly woke up. She felt restless and energetic and decided to go for a walk, or hang, or something. So she drifted off the bed, across the floor and up a wall to a window and slithered through the narrow slit. _Cool!_ she thought, as she drifted down the outside wall. She looked around the night and started to assess her new senses. She could feel a surprising amount of activity around her, small mammals hiding in bushes, a dog trotting by on important canine business, insects buzzing about, a hungry vampire searching for a victim, a house cat out hunting field mice, and finally, lots of rustling in the shadows cast by the streetlights. Her mind stopped on a dime as she suddenly cast her senses back to the vampire. She took off at a – not exactly a run – a rapid slither she supposed.

As she motivated up the street, she couldn't help but play with her new-found abilities. She started sashaying back and forth, spiraled herself around lightpoles and other objects, slithering up and down vertical walls, and in general had fun exploring the night. Every once in a while she would remember that she was following a vampire and would look around, locate it, and go in a straight line for a short distance.

But finally, she noticed that the vamp had spotted prey of his own: a young man who was weaving his way down the sidewalk after an obvious night of carousal. This so focused her on her vampire prey, that she didn't give any thought as to how she would defeat her primordial enemy while being so insubstantial. When Slayer-of-Darkness reached the vampire, she immediately and thoughtlessly attacked and slashed though him. But nothing happened. In fact, the vampire wasn't even aware of the Slayer's existence, much less felt threatened by her. Buffy was thoroughly frustrated, so she stopped to analyze the situation. She thought about what Anya had said the other day about pinching blood vessels, suffocating, cutting nerves, etc. Unfortunately, none of those things would kill a vampire. Still, it was worth trying.

From a large moon-shadow under a tree, a short distance from where Slayer-of-Darkness was circling her unwary enemy, Eater-of-Darkness and Lord-of-Darkness watched. Eater said to Lord, "Is that the Shadow of the Slayer? She doesn't look all that dangerous, she's quite small, and her _darkness_ isn't really all that dark."

Lord answered, "That's her all right. Don't be fooled, looks can be deceiving."

"Perhaps, instead of attacking and killing her, we should persuade her to join us."

"Yeah right, we could start by offering her suggestions on how to kill her enemies, we just have to make sure that she doesn't know that **we** are her enemies." Lord retorted.

They were quiet as shadows while they watched Shadow Slayer run through her repertoire of death-to-vampires. They were faintly amused by her increasing frustration at her inability to dust the vampire, especially as the vampire got closer and closer to the lone drunk, but less so when she finally managed to get his attention. And when she suddenly realized how to manipulate objects they became worried. And when shortly after that the vampire took a small wooden stick to the heart, and burst into dust, they became agitated. Worse, Slayer-of-Darkness noticed them under the tree and came over.

"Hiya guys," Buffy intoned breezily, "My name's Buffy, Buffy-the-Slayer-of-Darkness, I think. Who're you?"

"Hi, umm, my name is Blue-Shadow-of-Darkness," said Lord-of-Darkness, "and this is my brother Eat-, Ethereal-Darkness. We were just out for a walk when we noticed you slaying that vampire. That was a pretty good trick."

"Hi Blue and Ethereal. Yeah, I'm kinda new at this shadow stuff. But I'm starting to get the hang of it.

"Be careful there," said 'Ethereal', "your edges are dragging in the dew."

"Oh," exclaimed Buffy, "that is – why should I, or you, care if my edges get damp?"

"I don't care, and if you're some kind of slob, maybe you don't care either. But among my family, it's considered unseemly at best, lazy and sloppy at worst."

"Oh, I see," replied Buffy without really seeing, "then I'll be more elevated. Does that suit you?"

"Absolutely! You'll be one of us in no time at all!" said Eater-of-Darkness, completely forgetting his purpose for being there.

Buffy looked at him with suspicion, "I'm pretty sure that joining you is the last thing I should do, in fact, I have this sudden urge to kick your ass! Why is that do you suppose?"

"Hey," said 'Ethereal', "I get that urge all the time too! But I usually can't," he added downcast.

Buffy looked surprised when a part of her insubstantial self started to elongate towards home and said, "What the heck is this?"

"Oh, you're beginning to de-spiritize, this occurs when your solid master starts to wake up. When your corporeal self becomes self-aware you will snap back to her cast shadow and lose consciousness. Don't worry about it, when the bag of blood and solid bits that you call your body goes back to sleep, you'll be free again. And eventually, when you kill off your solidity you will be permanently free," explained Lord-of-Darkness, the last sentence being hurried because Shadow Buffy was perilously extended, then gone.

"Well," said Eater-of-Darkness, "that could have gone better, and it could have gone worse."

"Do you think she bought my bullshit about killing her solid self?" wondered Lord aloud.

"Don't know brother. But we need to strategize for our next encounter. Come, we'll go to the ballet and inhabit the ballerina's shadows while they practice, I could use the exercise from high flying leaps. Then a short snooze in the coal bin, then to work."

-- --


	3. Chapter 3

The Shadow of the Slayer 

Chapter Three

Buffy woke up in her bed and turned off her alarm just before it went off, as she usually did every morning. But she felt the presence of warm bodies in her room and started to leap angrily and dangerously out of bed to deal with the interlopers. Then she identified the intruders and flopped back down and pulled the blanket up over her head.

"Geez guys, is this necessary?" Buffy asked, nettled, peering out from under the blanket.

Willow, Giles and Dawn were sitting on kitchen chairs and were staring at her. Giles said, "Yes, I am your Watcher and I am ..."

"Watching," said Buffy, "yes, I see that, but watching me sleep seems a little skanky, even for a British Librarian, or maybe especially for a British Librarian."

"Now Buffy," said Giles, "your mother was here too."

"Well that makes its all peachy doesn't it!"

"And I was a little worried by this whole enterprise, even though Willow assures me that I need not worry in the slightest, but that is no consolation I fear, especially in consideration of some of Willow's previous insalubrious experiments in witchcraft; sorry Willow."

Willow was unhappy and upset with Giles' assessment, but couldn't quite think of an appropriate response.

"And besides," Giles continued, "even if everything went swimmingly well, you are in the middle of an operation, and I am here to offer support as well as to hear your report from the field, as it were."

Joyce bustled in carrying a tray with coffee and accouterments. "Wakey, wakey, Buffy. Coffee Mr. Giles? Willow? Dawn? Buffy?"

"Why don't all of you leave, go downstairs, and I'll meet you there after I've finished my morning routine. Unless of course, you want to watch me bathe?"

Giles, embarrassed, got up hastily and said, "No, no, of course not, we'll meet you downstairs. In fact, the rest of us could probably stand to freshen up as well." And he shooed everyone out into the hall.

--- ---

Eventually everyone ended up at the breakfast table. "So Buffy," asked Giles, "do you have anything to report?"

"Yes I do," said Buffy, "I actually dusted a vampire last night, and I met some other Shadow Creatures. I must say, my slayer senses were buzzing during my conversation with Blue and Ethereal. I think they were lying to me. The whole shadow state was intoxicating—it was really a lot of fun zooming around."

"Do you suppose," asked Giles, "that you might try a coherent form of report, that is: begin at the beginning, when you gained shadow consciousness, report each occurrence, especially unusual or odd incidents, in order, and stop when you get to the end, that is when you awakened."

"Spoilsport."

Joyce interrupted, "Was it dangerous?"

"Umm, I don't know for sure, but I don't think it was dangerous to me. Dusting the vampire was an exercise in frustration at first, until I finally figured out how to manipulate solid objects while in the shadow state. And in answer to one of our earlier questions, yes, I believe a Shadow Demon can fire a gun, definitely if it was cocked and loaded, maybe if not."

"So no problems with the actual spiritization process?" asked Willow, glancing nervously at Giles.

"There could be one difficulty. According to the creatures I talked to, if my Shadow Self murders my corporeal self, then the Inspirited Shadow becomes permanent, with none of this inconvenient waking up during the day. I kind of got the feeling that's how they are made in the first place. But I am not certain."

"Oh Buffy," said Joyce, "I hate this. I just hate it."

"Don't worry mom, I'm not going to kill myself." Joyce looked stricken, she grabbed a cup of coffee and left the room.

Giles asked, "How certain are you of your control over your Inspirited Shadow? Perhaps we should cut this short and go ahead and reverse the procedure. Willow? How much preparation time do you need?"

"Reverse the...? We never talked about that Giles. I don't even know if it's possible," said a crestfallen Willow, "somehow, the subject never came up before. I just assumed that the shadow would eventually dissipate."

Giles looked daggers at Willow. "Willow, I can't believe that you didn't anticipate this! What's wrong with you!"

"But Giles, you were there too!" Willow was near to losing control.

Buffy stood up, "Hush! None of us thought it through to this part. Obviously there is plenty of blame to go around, but seriously Giles, blaming Willow for not have 20/20 foresight in hindsight is – uh, I'm a little tangled there, but you know what I mean. Perhaps Willow, you could do some research. And Giles, reversing the procedure may amount to killing off a part of my spirit, so let's not rush into things. And in the meantime, I'm pretty sure that there is no rush. I mean, I think that the _Slayer-of-Darkness_ has to ponder for a long time before trying to kill me. And I am hard to kill, as many a beast has found out. And she has a job to do first."

"And one of her jobs is to give me a proper report."

--- ---

The next evening the _Vampire-Slayer-of-Darkness _slithered around in a more introspective spirit of mind. She wandered this way and that, slayed a vampire or two here and there, and tried to find her limitations. Actually, her range of action turned out to be dismayingly broad.

Then she decided to do some detective work. So Buffy slithered into Willy's, of all places, and discovered that the while the regular clientèle were unaware of her, there was a whole coterie of Inspirited Shadows in attendance that noticed her entrance. They were mostly under tables and behind the bar, as well inhabiting a few shadowy corners. They all looked in her direction and the noticeable shadow buzz went silent for a few moments. Then they all looked back to their companions and starting babbling again.

Shadow Buffy recognized _Ethereal-Darkness_ in the shadow of the juke box talking animatedly with other shadow beasties. She slithered over and said, "Hi Ethereal, how ya doin'?"

The others looked blank, since they didn't know any Ethereal. _Eater-of-Darkness_ looked up and realized that this was going to be hard to explain. "_Ethereal_ is just my brother's nickname for me, I am actually _Eater-of-Darkness_. Guys, this is _Buffy-the-Slayer-of-Darkness, _a recently spiritized Shadow. Buffy, this is _Wavy-Edges-of-Darkness_ and _Transition-of-Light-to-Darkness_. They're just visiting Sunnydale, passing through on their way to Carlsbad Caverns for a dark vacation."

"Yes," said Wavy, "how could we resist becoming real for awhile? The _Lord-of-Darkness's_ substantiation spell was quite effective, wasn't it? It's been, gosh, I don't know, at least five decades since I was able to go out and kill something!"

"Oh, I know what you mean," gushed Buffy, "I've been entertaining myself by staking vampires, the look of surprise they get when they realize they're dissolving into dust is a real kick!"

"Vampires huh?" said Transition, "I never thought of that. Hate those critters, they never provide shadows. Don't have much in the way of souls though." He picked up a miniature flashlight from the bowl between them and stuck it in his mouth. He clicked the button three or four times and briefly glowed from within. He put the flashlight down shakily and said, "Woah! What a rush!"

"That's how us Shadow Creatures get high? With light?"

"You're really are new aren't you?" asked Wavy. "Light is generally bad for our health, that's why we inhabit shadows. But, during these _real_ spells, a special light, shining in the red wavelengths, can indeed cause a feeling of, I don't know, how would describe it Eater?"

"Kind of like getting drunk," answered Eater, "although it's an inexact analogue."

"Yeah, Transition added, "but when you combine it with the fleeing of dead souls through through Shadow Flesh, well nothing's better than that, except sex I suppose. The other day out at the big freeway accident I was buzzing for hours. Best high I ever had in a hundred years."

"Big freeway accident?" inquired Buffy, "did you cause that?"

"Oh, no, that was _Lord-of-Darkness's_ accomplishment. He was flying alongside a big truck and was able to cause a wheel bearing failure at a perfect point, man that truck caused a huge pile-up!"

Buffy could only think of one question to ask, "How do shadow creatures have sex?"

--- ---

To Be Continued.

_Author's notes:_

_Although I generally look askance at all this importunate begging for reviews that is rampant here at _Fan Fiction dot Net_, I find that I too have to ask. I am genuinely curious to know if anyone else finds this as fun to read as it is to write._


	4. Chapter 4

The Shadow of the Slayer 

Chapter Four

The next morning, it was conference time in the living room. The whole gang was in attendance as Joyce and Dawn served coffee and donuts, the donuts being a Xander treat. Buffy was uncharacteristically serious as she called everyone to order.

"OK, last night I found out that the interstate accident was no accident. A Shadow creature caused it on purpose by somehow destroying a wheel bearing on a truck, apparently the Shadow Creatures get off on the feeling of souls fleeing dead bodies: several told me about the high they get. I guess I missed that particular pleasure because so far, I have only killed soulless vampires in the shadow state. The reaction of the others to my predilection for slaying vampires was a little off, though. They looked at me like I was crazy."

"So Buffy, have you figured out who is the killer?" asked Giles.

"Yes, it's a shadow creature named _Lord-of-Darkness_, with the help, I think, of _Eater-of-Darkness_. Eater is the one who got angry enough to cast the _Substantiation_ spell. I have a big problem though, I haven't the foggiest idea how one goes about killing _Inspirited-Phantoms_. Any ideas, anything I could experiment with would be nice."

Dawn asked, "Have you tried anything with your own shadow? I mean you could try pinching yourself or something. Try to hurt yourself—but just a little, you know, to find your weak spots."

"Well that's just it," said Buffy, "my _shadow_ self has no hands or feet. I'm just a shadow, a dark shade, sort of like a mathematical concept of a plane, except I'm all fuzzy. The outline of my _shadow_ shadow is more or less the 2D shape of me, but there don't seem to be any internal organs or anything solid."

"So how are you slaying vampires?" asked Willow.

"Some form of magic, I guess. I somehow figured out how to float objects, and I can make them shoot off like arrows or stakes. You know, just you do with pencils and things in this world." Buffy looked a little puzzled as she tried to explain herself.

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Buffy suddenly, "there is one thing. The _Shadows_ like to gather at Willy's bar and they manipulate flashlights. I saw several stick flashlights in their—well, I was going to say mouth, but it's just a folding of the shadow—and flick the light a few times. This makes them glow from the inside and gives them a feeling of drunkenness."

"Yeah?" asked Dawn, "and how did that feel?"

"It wasn't quite like getting drunk, a distinctly high feeling though", then Buffy added hurriedly, "I mean, it would have been had I tried it."

"Too late, too late, too late," chanted Dawn, "my sisters a lightwave stoner!"

Dawn's comment caused Willow to lose herself in thought. "Uh, Buffy?" she asked after a few moments, "can you tell me what different wavelengths of light feel like to your _Shadow-Self_?"

"Sorry Will, but I don't do wavelengths. But red light seemed to increase the stoned feeling of the drunk _shadows_ at Willy's bar. And _Wavy-Edges-of-Darkness_ said something about light being unhealthy. That's why they like inhabiting shadows. But obviously, light doesn't burn them up like it does vampires."

"So how about if we stake one down in the sunlight?" asked Xander.

"And how would you drive a stake through a shadow?" Buffy asked, a little snottily.

"Umm, let me think about that for awhile." Xander was nonplussed.

Willow mused, "Do you suppose a high-output infrared light would kill them? Or just make them higher? Unless, maybe they use the longer wavelengths to get high because it's the shorter wavelengths that kill them?"

Dawn suggested, "UV flashlight?"

"Well," said Xander, "they used to use UV for military night-vision systems. They don't anymore, but maybe Army surplus would have such a thing."

"Hmmm," said Willow, "probably not strong enough."

Xander said, "How about those big lights they use in warehouses? They're strong in the UV department; they're called HID Mercury Vapor Lights. About two feet in diameter, three feet tall, a thousand watts. I could borrow a generator from the construction site—we could pull it behind your mom's Jeep Cherokee."

"And what, cut a hole in the roof? Mount it on a gun turret? I don't think so. Why don't we use your car instead?" Buffy replied with an edge to her voice, "this all sounds like sci-fi geeky stuff to me, anyway. Of course, if it works we'll do it. But we are not cutting any holes in mom's car!"

"Well," said Dawn, "Instead of going all slayery on these shadows, how about we think about the S_ubstantiation_ spell that solidified them in the first place. Reverse it, problem solved, right?"

"Dawn, you're a genius!" said Buffy and Willow, almost simultaneously.

"Except," asked Willow, "how do we do the reversal spell?"

"Willow, you did the spiritization spell on Buffy, surely you've already got an idea as to how they made themselves real in the first place, right? The talk in the bar with the other Shadows all suggested that it was very rare for these _shadow-real_ spells to occur. Like it was half a century since the last time it happened."

Giles took off his glasses and started polishing. "Yes, but, if we just reverse the spell, then the soulless murdering demons get off scott-free."

"Giles," said Buffy, "since when are we in the justice business? Our whole mission is to stop creatures of the night, demons, vampires or whatever from killing people. We don't take them to court. If a simple spell stops them from killing people, then that's what we should do."

"You're right of course, although it does stick in my craw. So, Willow, shall we research?"

"Sure. What's a craw, anyway?"

--- ---

The next afternoon at the Magic Box found most of the scoobies in full research mode, the round table piled high with old and ancient books and scrolls. The doorbell jingled and Buffy walked in with Dawn. "Hi guys," she asked, "any progress?"

A downcast Willow said, "Yeah, we figured out how to reverse the spell."

"Really? Well good, right?"

"Not so good," said Xander, "it requires the blood of..."

"Oh no," interrupted Dawn, "not again, please tell me, not again!"

"No Dawny, no key-blood, nor the blood of a Slayer; just the blood of a few hundred recently killed people."

"Oh. That doesn't sound good."

"That's why we stopped looking along that line of reasoning. Well, that and the fact that we would need also to locate _Methuselah's Tankard_ for the spell to work. And I really don't know if that's available."

"Methuselah's Tankard?" asked Giles, "is that an accurate translation?"

"Well, I don't know," said Willow, "it might be Methuselah's glass, or cup, or ale mug. I'm not certain of the connotation. But I think tankard is close enough."

"A tankard?" asked Anya, "that's kind of common, don't you think?"

"Yeah," laughed Willow, "next thing you know we'll need the Wandering Jew's Chamber Pot, or Guinevere's Hairbrush, or..."

Anya interrupted, "The Wandering Jew didn't have a pot to piss in, no fixed abode, remember? Although the last time I chatted with him he did have a new-found appreciation for modern plumbing. In fact, none of you youngsters can really appreciate what life was like before the invention of the commode. Crapping in a pan is not civilized."

Giles looked at Anya with one eyebrow raised, "Anya, are you seriously suggesting that you have met the Wandering Jew?"

"Sure, I bump into him every century or so. I thought about having orgasms with him, but his long straggly white beard turned me off."

"Anya, I beg of you, stop. The Wandering Jew is a myth!"

"Nuh uh!"

Dawn said, "I didn't know there was anything that could turn Anya off."

Giles took off his glasses and studied the lenses carefully while everyone else chuckled. Except Anya, who glared at Dawn.

Willow turned to Buffy and said, "It's pointless anyway, we're not gonna bleed hundreds of people, so Giles and I went back to the best texts, well, text, we could find on the subject of these creatures and we are trying to understand their physical attributes," said Willow.

Buffy and Dawn sat down. Anya asked if they wanted any refreshments. The both said no, having been charged the last time they took Anya up on her offer.

After finishing a cup of tea, Giles put his book down in frustration, and started to polish his glasses. "I'm having a hard time making sense of this. 'Shadow of the Shadowless', what could that mean?"

"Heh," Willow said, "And here I thought I was the only befuddled one. I was sure that I was translating it wrong. Unless we're both wrong. Did you see this one?" Willow flipped the page in the book Giles just put down and pointed, "Spirit of the Spiritless. Goddess only knows what that means."

"Well, there is a certain economy of gist," said Giles, "I just don't understand the conclusion, or lack of same as the case may be. Of course, part of the problem is the annoying tendency of this cardinal to start preaching every few paragraphs."

Buffy leaned back and gazed sightlessly at the ceiling. After a while she mused, "You know, the other night one of the Shadow Critters in Willy's bar said something about vampires being in the cycle of – life, maybe, or cycle of shadow. Whatever, I'm afraid my _Shadow-Self_ didn't pay much attention. But do you suppose the _shadowless_ and _spiritless_ could refer to vampires? Does that fit anything?"

"Vampires don't cast shadows," said Xander.

"Well," said Dawn, "they do in artificial light. And I think they do in sunlight too, just not for very long. I don't think it's like the reflection thingy."

Willow said, "Still, a vampire can be considered to be shadowless, as a general rule. And spiritless too, but the definition of spirit can be much trickier. It can refer to many different things, a personality trait, a synonym for soul, or a sort of ghost. In that spell we did to Inspiritize Buffy's shadow, we used the notion of spirit as an insubstantial but important piece of Buffy, but not, I believe, her soul. Giles, you want to step in here?"

"No, not really."

"There may be something else I didn't mention," said Buffy, "last night I may have had a prophetic dream."

"How could you dream and be an _Inspirited Phantom_ at the same time?" asked Dawn.

"Well, that's the problem in a nutshell. It was all very weird, sort of like an intense daydream, halfway between a regular dream and awake."

"So don't keep us in suspense Buffy," said Giles, "what happened in your dream?"

"Understand that the shadow-me didn't really notice the vision, too busy playing in the shadows, I guess. But the me-me, who was asleep, had the dreamy vision. It was very hard to keep track of it all. Anyway, there was some sort of thing about a vampire attacking someone. And during the attack the person's shadow detached itself and kind went through the vampire, and then wandered off. The worst part of the whole dream, to me anyway, was that there was no feeling of urgency. That watching someone die was not the part of the vision that I was to worry about. A very un-slayerlike dream, if you ask me."

Xander frowned and said, "So the Shadow-Demon, or Inspirited Phantom of the person, became the _Inspirited Phantom of the Vampire_? Sounds like an old movie."

"Well sure," said Anya, "then the shadow monster lives as long as the vampire, and doesn't have to inhabit the vampire's shadow during the day, when the sun is out, because of the no shadow thing."

"Is the life of the Shadow connected to the shadow-caster?" asked Giles, "and if so, how come we haven't found a reference to this?"

"Oh," said Anya, "didn't I mention that?"

"No."

"And when, or if, the person dies, his inspirited phantom dies too. This is all perfectly predictable and well known," Anya said matter-of-factly.

"Not to us, Anya. Is there anything else we should know?" asked Xander. But his irritation with her was distracted when his eyes dropped to her breasts.

Anya sat down next to Xander and whispered in his ear, "I see you're awake."

He looked back, "Yes, I am, but we have to work for a few more hours before we can..."

Dawn looked at Xander and Anya and said, "If you two could keep your clothes on for a little while longer, maybe Anya could just blather on about shadows and we'll find out something new—worth a try anyway."

As it turned out, it wasn't worth a try.

--- ---

_TBC_


End file.
